it's true

[jeckie]

You might not know this, but many well-used hardcover books have a sliver of metal sticking out from between the two pages that sit exactly in the middle. It might be silver, it might be kind of reddish-orange. I don't know, that might not even be accurate, I've only seen them twice. They only stick out about two millimeters, so they aren't immediately visible. But if you are the kind of reader who creases pages down with your thumb or your index finger to get them to an exactly-just-so level of flatness, they can cut you. They can seriously cut you, very deep and very hard. You will be just at that midway point where it is starting to get good, and you are starting to lean forward unnecessarily to get closer to the words, and you are starting to blow off class and lunch and other commitments in order to read, and suddenly you will be bleeding from a very thin, very deep, very painful slice in the pad of your finger. And you might not realize what has happened: it's the binding; you've been cut.

So don't say nobody warned you.